Microwave and radio-based systems are used in countless civilian and military applications including communications, radar, and other power transmission systems. One important sub-set of applications includes their customized use in, for example, satellites, rockets, spacecraft and aircraft for providing reliable long-range communication and data transmission connections. Referring generally to FIG. 1a, these radio and/or microwave systems may include hardware-based radios 11 used to, for example, transmit data received from a data source, such as one or more sensors or data input devices 10, via a transmitter 13. A radio frequency (RF) front end module 12 may be provided for processing the data signal (e.g. filtering, mixing, up-converting) before it is transmitted to, for example, one or more ground-based receivers. In order to ensure functional reliability, the application-specific RF and microwave processing components of the front end module have traditionally been implemented with redundant spares (e.g. two transmitters) and an associated switching arrangement. This design and implementation process is costly, long in development time, and bulky in often very space-limited environments.
Alternative systems and methods for implementing microwave and/or radio systems and/or devices are desired.